My Friend, Andrew Breitbart

Everybody got along with him. He surrounded himself with people you'd never expect -- Orthodox Jews and liberal agnostics, libertarians and social conservatives, goofballs and the most serious of the serious. He liked everybody, and everybody liked him.

Andrew was a perfectionist, a narrative junkie, an excitable and unstoppable force of nature. He was loosey-goosey in his manner, but he was rigorous in his thinking. He was hilariously funny -- jokes and stories ran trippingly from his tongue, dirty and clean, but all without boundaries. There has never been anyone in his league when it comes to strategizing the media war. And there was no one I would rather take a late-night phone call from than Andrew. I'll never forget the 9 p.m. phone call in which he told me he had some sort of story on a Congressman from New York or the pure joy in his voice when he explained to me about the ACORN tapes, his booming laugh resonating in my ears. Andrew lived for this.

Andrew wasn't religious, but he believed deeply in the moral fabric of the nation. He knew the value of the American system of government and thought, and he would not stop fighting for it. Most of all, Andrew loved truth. He hated falsity, whether interpersonal or journalistic or political. He hated hypocrisy and couldn't stand two-faced politicians (as Anthony Weiner can attest). He was not a manipulator. He was unwaveringly honest, sometimes to his own detriment. He loved culture and hated ignorance.

When my father heard about his death, he wrote me, "You know how I always say that when someone vivid dies some light goes out of the world? In his case, it was like a torch going out -- brilliant and ephemeral. It reminds me way too much of him being like Diogenes carrying his torch in daylight looking for an honest man. Andrew was our Diogenes." I can't put it much better than that. As far as America is concerned, we're down by a Diogenes.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm down a great, great friend. Andrew, I will miss you. So will the country. But we'll keep on fighting until the fight is done.